Ruling Could Limit Home Trade

July 18, 1986|By John Hill of The Sentinel Staff

KISSIMMEE — In a ruling that could have a significant effect on people with home businesses, the city's zoning official has ordered an operator of a food pickup and delivery service to stop taking orders in his Hounds Lake Court home.

James A. Golembiewski, owner of the Mad Muncher, delivers meals from Osceola County restaurants to homes, hotel rooms and apartments for a fee. He has been taking customers' orders by phone from his home, then collecting the money when he makes deliveries.

David McNab, city zoning officer, said the procedure constitutes doing business in a ''residential A-1 zone.'' The city has a ''residential professional business'' zoning classification, he said, which was created specifically for residences and offices. Golembiewski's home in the Shadow Lake subdivision does not fall in that category, he said.

The Kissimmee zoning ordinance for residential districts reads: ''. . . no building or structure shall be erected which is intended or designed to be used in whole or in part for an industry, trade, manufacturing or commercial purposes . . . ''

Patrick Daughtery, the city's building and zoning director, said the ruling also would apply to phone-sales businesses and envelope-stuffing companies that operate outside residential-professional districts.

It would not apply to door-to-door sales or to home-party sales of items such as cookware or cosmetics, he said, because those are not recurring events. If a person held a sales demonstration at home every day, he said, then the person would be violating the commercial activity ordinance by scheduling a regular commercial event.

He said citations are infrequent because it is difficult to find people who are running a businesses out of their homes unless they become well-known or advertise extensively.

The city found out about Golembiewski's operation last week when the Osceola Sentinel published an article about food-delivery services.

Golembiewski said, after discussing the ordinance with Daugherty, he agreed to have an employee at an office in downtown Kissimmee for eight hours each business day but said that he would continue to take after-hours calls at home.

''They can't stop me from having my phone in my house,'' he said. ''They can't stop me from having my computer in my house. I paid $100,000 for this house, and I live in America, and if I want to take my work home I will.''

Golembiewski said he would comply with McNab's order because fighting it in court would be too expensive.

He rented the office on Broadway when he started the Mad Muncher in April, he said, because he needed a business-zone address to get a business license. He began taking calls at home, he said, so that he could offer his service 24 hours a day.

McNab's definition of what constitutes a business operation is too vague, Golembiewski said, and could be extended to anyone who takes or makes business calls from home.

Daugherty acknowledged that other people may be running businesses out of their homes and may not have been cited. If the city becomes aware of such activities, he said, the operations will be cited.